Words

Some days I sit at this 5:30 AM screen and I stare at the blinking cursor. There is so much clamoring within me to get out, to speak. “You are not ready … yet,” I say. “Wait a while. Today is not your day.”

And sometimes I cannot make the words behave. I fear that they will offend and frustrate. They are unruly – passionate. “People do not like that,” I tell them “so ride the waves of grace. Find a gentler way.”

The problem is that they are activists, every one of them. They believe that they are called to be a voice, to call out truth and to plead for action. Like toddlers that think that they hold the whole world in their tiny, clumsy bodies, they plead to be set free. They would say whatever was on their tongues, thinking that the entire planet should bend an ear to their phrases.

And often, very often, I do not know how to order them into an eloquence and an honesty that will be beneficial for those who have a moment to stop and to chat a while in the space of their busy, busy lives.

My unruly mob of voices see life on this planet through a lens. They are privileged to have that lens. They are better for that lens.

Today, I told them that they could only speak about their world through the camera that accompanies them almost everywhere we go.

This is what they choose to say today about the Europe they call home.